[AW] give us bread, give us salt, give us wine;

[Theodosia]

let our eyes show the
fire in our hearts tonight

She has been pushing herself to her breaking point again, or perhaps she has surpassed it already -- her pale eyes are ringed in dark bruises, and yet she continues to fly, continues to search, continues to ache. Even a renewed sense of tenuous faith cannot hold back the thoughts howling in her mind -- that she has failed as Dusk’s Champion, that she has failed Ard and Erd, that she has failed all of Terrastella -- and they batter at her like cannonballs, more bruising than any fight she has ever been in.

She has been summoned to the cliffs, and like the loyal hound, she answers the call despite the exhaustion dragging at her bones.

She is flying over the ocean when she sees a wave nearly explode beneath her, a dark speck that hurtles out of the sea-foam and coalesces into the shape of Marisol, and she is too startled to react -- the Commander soars upwards and then down, down into the Cliffs with an impact that she can almost feel in her bones; and her stubborn, traitorous heart has lodged itself into her throat as she begins her own dive.

She lands next to the Marisol harder than she means to, hard enough that her knees almost buckle and send her down into the mud herself. Somewhere behind her is her propriety, her duty -- perhaps it is still hanging in the air above the ocean, for it is certainly not here, not while her heart is beating in her ears and she has to choke back a panicked snarl while the others approach, has to deliberately hold her shaking wings against her side to keep from covering Marisol beneath them and hiding her away from the world.

She doesn’t say a word, for fear that her tongue would betray her -- she only glances between the Commander and Atreus, waiting for an answer, waiting for a command.

credits
@Asterion @Marisol @Atreus